100 Years Ago: May 3-9

From The Indianapolis Star, Sunday, May 4, 1919: High school art students, directed by artist Otto Stark, designed wall decorations at five Indianapolis public schools. Each school paid for its painting, and five characters – Mother Goose, Little Boy Blue, Little Miss Muffet, Mary, Mary Quite Contrary and Little Bo Peep – are used in the theme at three of them. The murals in the primary room of Oliver P. Morton School No. 29 are the work of Lonnie Edwards, George Mess, Constance Warren and Ethelwyn Weaver. Teachers have observed the wall paintings afford a fertile field for the children’s imagination. At James Whitcomb Riley School No. 43, “The Dignity of Labor” is the symbolic mural in an upper grade room by Lonnie Edwards. Twelve figures, male and female, are grouped in a pleasing composition suggesting various occupations and industries.